Projects

NORMAPME is involved in the following projects:

• Promoting Craft and SMEs in the area of European standardisation
• ECWINS
• EPBD
• BSP III
• Easyqual
• ASPIRE

Past projects can be found here

Promoting Craft and SMEs in the area of European standardisation - lot1 – This 18 months project aims at collecting information on services provided in European countries for improving the innovative capacity and thus competitiveness of SMEs through European standardisation. Two main tasks are being performed:

• to create an overview of public and private initiatives to promote craft enterprises and SMEs in the area of standardisation
• to organize a European Conference

NORMAPME, as a partner to EIM, provides the network for operation.

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ECWINS - Within two years time all windows have to be provided with a CE-mark, also for the local market. This means that the performance profile of windows in the whole EU will be uniformly determined. To handle this problem the German Association of window-manufacturers in North–Rhine Westphalia has searched for Associations in other European Countries facing the same problem, and has contacted research institutes to prepare a proposal (the “ECWINS”-proposal) in a EU-research program. The objectives of ECWINS, May 2006 - April 2009 are the following:

www.ecwins.eu

• Simplifying for SME the production of windows according to the CE-Conformity and the “CE-assessment model”
• Avoiding and minimising physical testing to achieve the required characteristics in the product standard EN 13451-1
• Optimizing window constructions in the framework of the EN 13451-1
• Improvement of the Applicability for windows to other EU-Countries by using the “EU window interface model”
• Strengthen the competitiveness of SMEs referring the industrialized window manufacturers

NORMAPME is partner association responsible for:

• Collecting data for the inventory of window-systems, building processes and building legislations in their country;
• Coordination between the research institutes and the SMEs
• Verification of the models referring to practical use
• Participation in the regular committee meetings
• Training and introduction of the different models in SMEs
• Publication of the project results, as well as organisation of workshops

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EPBD

NORMAPME will be launching a project on "Energy Performance of Buildings - Development of a European tool" and is currently looking for partners and experts in the area.

The aim of the project is to develop a European tool (software), according to EU Directive 2002/91/EC and the CEN standards, that will allow the operators in the building sector of European SME's to perform simplified energy calculations.

The EU Directive on Energy Performance of Buildings (2002/91/EC) came into force in January 2006. An additional 3 year period will allow Member States to apply the provisions of the Directive, including enforcing energy certifications for all new buildings and building renovations.

Few organizations among European countries already developed a methodology, making use of a software tool to calculate the Energy Efficiency in Buildings but they present some disadvantages for European SME's, which are:

The characteristics and advantages of the tool to be developed will be:

Tool characteristics:

- Be easy to use and understandable to any operator working in the building sector

- Contain simplified energy calculations

- Be affordable and used as a service rather than a product (software) one has to purchase

Tool advantages :

The partners and experts NORMAPME is looking for:

Each person of the WG will contribute with its own system in EPB calculations and /or its own specific expertise about the national building traditions and climatic conditions to which the software will be adapted.

If you are interested in being part of the WG or would like further details about the project, please do not hesitate to contact Vanessa Pereira.

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BSPIII (Business Support Programme)

BSPIII is a project led by UEAPME in the framework of the European PHARE Programme. It started in September 2007 for a duration of 24 months. BSPIII comprises a wide range of activities, designed to spread knowledge of the acquis in the beneficial countries ( Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Turkey) and to strengthen the SME associations there. The main activities are the following:

1. Train the trainers programme + training tools

Train the trainers seminars for a first wave of trainers from the target country partners will be held in Brussels. The programme is focused on the acquis in the following areas: standardisation and certification, environmental protection and energy policy, food quality, product safety, health and safety at work, quality management.

2. Information seminars for enterprises on the acquis and other relevant topics for SMEs

During these information seminars, experts from the EU partner countries share their experience on specific areas of the community acquis (first half of the seminar - the same acquis areas as in the train the trainers programme) and on other areas of interest for SMEs, such as access to finance, CSR, start-ups or female entrepreneurship (second half of the seminar). The seminars are mainly designed for enterprises, but also for BRO staff.

3. Institution building activities + helping the target SMEs to introduce new services

The partners from the EU Member States will also share their experience in offering services to members and so help the partners from the target countries to improve the quality of their services and also help them to introduce new services mainly related to the application of the community acquis.

4. Seminars with representatives of the government and trade unions

In each target country the project partners will organise a seminar for representatives of the government and trade unions. The EU partners will share their experience of social dialogue, explain how they are involved in the consultation and decision-making process. They also try to show the governments of the target countries what they can do to help SMEs.

NORMAPME is involved in the first three activities.

For more information, contact k.iffour@normapme.com

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Easyqual

Quality management has always been an issue for SMEs. Most of them cannot benefit from cost and efficiency advantages of quality management system a as they are too complicated to implement without expertise. In addition compliance with ISO 9001 is often a prerequisite for a SME to be selected by large customers.

In order to solve these problems, NORMAPME decided to launch this self-funded project to help SMEs improving their quality level and implementing ISO 9001 in connection with our participation in the ISO Technical Committee 176 on Quality Management.

Amongst NORMAPME members and partners, there are complementary quality management implementation tools. EasyQual's principle is to settle a SME quality expert group that will consolidate and improve the existing tools.

EasyQual Quality tool will allow SMEs to improve their quality and eventually be ISO 9001:2000 certifiable. This implementation tool will be mainly electronic, enabling remote auditing as much as possible. A paper version will also be made available and will be forwarded to ISO TC176/SC2, in charge of reviewing ISO 9001 and 9004 standards (quality management). A NORMAPME expert is active in this Technical Committee. He will ensure that this document is taken into account when reviewing these standards.

Unlike most quality tools for SMEs, EasyQual quality tool will be assessed by testbed SMEs. They will comment on the draft version and will enable us to provide an implementation tool that fit really to SME needs. In exchange of their comments and efforts, these SME will receive the final tool for free. EasyQual is not limited to improve SME competitively, but will also influence future quality standards that SMEs may need to comply with.

EasyQual aims at being pan European, pan sectoral and allowing different quality options, and will respond to most of the foreseeable situations. As the SME fitness will be already assessed, it will increase the confidence of potential customers in the product. EasyQual will be distributed via the network of NORMAPME's members and partners.

For more information, contact k.iffour@normapme.com

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ASPIRE - Advanced Sensors and lightweight Programmable middleware for Innovative Rfid Enterprise applications

As of January 2008 UEAPME is a partner in ASPIRE, an EU founded research project that aims at making RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Devices) a less expensive and more accessible technology for SMEs. The project will develop new software solutions for RFID that will be distributed to SMEs under open source and royalty free conditions. This will considerably lower the total cost of ownership of RFID for SMEs as they will no longer have to bear the costs for acquiring licences of software proprietary systems for RFID.

ASPIRE will develop its software adapted to typical SME-scenarios in the following sectors:

Detailed description of the project can be found here.

Should you have any question on ASPIRE do not hesitate to contact Ms Mariette Wennmacher m.wennmacher@ueapme.com

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